III. JOHN HAD ENLARGED PERCEPTION OF THE TRUE NATURE OF CHRIST.--It has been questioned whether the paragraph which follows (John iii. 31-36) was spoken by the Baptist, or is the comment of the Evangelist. With many eminent commentators, I incline strongly to the former view. The phraseology employed in this paragraph is closely similar to the words addressed by Christ to Nicodemus, and often used by Himself, as in John v.; and they may well have filtered through to the Baptist, by the lips of Andrew, Peter, and John, who would often retail to their venerated earliest teacher what they heard from Jesus. Consider, then, the Baptist's creed at this point of his career. He _believed_ in the heavenly origin and divinity of the Son of Man--that He was from heaven and above all. He _believed_ in the unique and divine source of his teaching--that He did not communicate what He had learnt at second-hand, but stood forth as one speaking what He knows, and testifying what He has seen--"For He whom God has sent, speaketh the words of God." He _believed_ in his copious enduement with the Holy Spirit. Knowing that human teachers, at the best, could only receive the Spirit in a limited degree, he recognised that when God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit there was no limit, no measuring metre, no stint. It was copious, rich, unmeasured--so much so that it ran down from his head, as Hermon's dews descend to the lonely heights of Zion. He _believed_ in his near relationship to God, using the well-known Jewish phrase of sonship to describe his possession of the Divine nature in a unique sense, and recalling the utterance of the hour of baptism, to give weight to his assurance that the Father loved Him as Son. Lastly, He _believed_ in the mediatorial function of the Man of Nazareth--that the Father had already given all things into his hand; and that the day was coming when He would sit on the throne of David, yea, on the mediatorial throne itself, King of kings, and Lord of lords, the keys of Death and Hades, of the realms of invisible existence and spiritual power, hanging at his girdle.